I’m spending a lot of time with Affinity Photo these last few weeks – originally looking at how to improve my portrait photos on the iPhone, but now looking at trees and buildings. I’m experimenting with methods of isolation – removing the subject from the foreground and placing it on a complementary, neutral background. It’s trickier than it seems, particularly when it comes to trees and plants – the complexity is immense. I’ve been working on selection refinement and feathering as ways to reduce complexity and to allow the subject to sit well with it’s background with no jagged edges.

Here’s a selection of photos I’ve been working with. I took all of them over a single hour last week in Castlemartyr Resort in Ireland, and I’ve since been working on extracting them from their backgrounds. Castlemartyr Resort has some stunning trees for me to work on.

Over the last few weeks, I have been listening to Neil MacGregor’s terrific “Living with the Gods” BBC podcast. It has helped me to reconsider some of my views on religion and belief.

The podcast is wonderful, in that it brings you on an audio journey to places and peoples across the world. You name it, it’s there – from the dank caves of southern Germany, to the sacrificial pyramids of Aztec Mexico, to the great Kumbh Mela festival in India. Newgrange is mentioned, as is the Angelus that booms out on Irish radio each day. It considers the symbolism in religion, the common rituals, the public displays and private moments, and the relationship of religion to the exercise of power. It takes all these disparate elements and synthesizes them into a concrete, powerful narrative.

What I hear from all this is that religion is core to who we are. In all religions, our own nature is echoed back. It is a mirror, reflecting our greatest fears, our greatest needs and our hopes for the future. If you bypass the specific details of any one religion, you find the same needs there. These great longings are familiar to so many of us.

Religion doesn’t even need gods or supernatural agencies. We’ve seen in the last century the damaging power of secular belief systems gone awry. It seems that people will reach out for anything that gives them a sense of security, purpose and answers. God is just one alternative among many.

Such a pity it is that the details become so important. People will kill and die over the minutiae of their own faiths. Wars have started over trivial differences, people executed and tortured for not adhering to the orthodoxy of the day. Even today, so many people take delight in disparaging other people’s religions (and I’ve been one of them) to the point that demagogues can exact discriminatory laws and great injustices can take place with nary a whisper. Behind the details, we forget that at the core of much belief is something entirely understandable: something quintessentially human.

Such a pity that more people don’t reach out to understand religious practices elsewhere around the world, because the impression to be formed is that no matter where we are or who we are, there is a commonality that runs through us all. Having no religion or being inquisitive within one’s own religion, may be advantageous in this regard.

Thought is given in the podcast to life without religion. This is possibly the least satisfying part of the series, as it suggests that it’s unsustainable in the long run. At the end of the series, MacGregor makes the bold statement that we run the risk of society breaking up completely – this is something I would have wanted to understand more. Personally, I see many people making a good fist of living without gods or the traditional rituals of yesteryear. I don’t see how humanistic societies can’t operate for the success and happiness of their peoples: the record of countries like Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands is a case in point. Even Ireland is a happier place now that we have allowed God to fade into the background. Perhaps such states of affairs are unsustainable and perhaps communities are in peril, but at least a counter argument can be made in a world where we don’t now have to rely on revelation and traditional authority alone for matters of truth and belief.

In some ways, 2017 was a surprising year. I was expecting it to be all doom and gloom, and it certainly had its moments of awfulness, but lots of things happened and I’m surprised how much I managed to do over the year. Kids growing up: all teenagers now, some work trips to America and Singapore and a very enjoyable holiday in Wales. Day trips to Waterford and Kerry. Added to that were trips to see Brian Cox and Alt-J in Dublin, as well as hosting Professor Edzard Ernst here in Cork. I was busy at work though, and this resulted in me taking less photos and being less active online overall. I tend to get bored taking the same types of photo all the time.

Ballydowane, Co. Waterford

Ballydowane is a wonderful rocky cove near the coast road between Waterford and Tramore. It’s off the beaten track, but worth the spin. This tiny island is a regular subject of much local photography. I took this photo in early January.

Dromana Gate, Co. Waterford

Dromana Gate is located near Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. The gate is a Hindu-Gothic design originally built in wood and papier-mâché to celebrate the marriage in 1826 of Henry-Villiers Stuart and his wife Theresia Pauline Ott. It was later reconstructed in stone. It’s a fascinating structure – out of place for Ireland, yet a reminder of our varied cultural heritage.

Pink Rock, near New Ross

I used to pass through this area of the country almost every week when I was a child. The River Barrow flows here, on its way to Waterford Harbour. It’s an area of steep ground and great views to New Ross and beyond to the Blackstairs mountains in Carlow. A large bridge is being built here at the moment, which will take traffic from Rosslare to Waterford, avoiding the narrow bridge in New Ross, which has been a bottleneck for decades.

Fields of Barley, Co. Cork

During the summer, I took some photos in the fields close by the house. Some of them turned out well, I think.

Lismore Castle

Lismore is a terrific place to go for a day out – the gardens are a real gem and the castle is such an imposing edifice over the Blackwater River. This photo was taken in May with the Rhododendrons in full bloom.

Honeybee in flight

I took this photo with my iPhone in early June, patiently using burst photography to try to get the right shot. For a phone camera, the results worked out quite well.

Coumshingaun Lake, Co. Waterford

In late June, I ventured with a group of friends into the Comeragh Mountains. We did the Coumshingaun Horseshoe. It’s one of my favourite walks in the country. A hard slog at the beginning, but it levels off quickly. The views are delightful.

Waterford Greenway

This was the year we explored the Waterford Greenway properly – travelling over two different days the length of the route from Dungarvan to Waterford. It was fantastic. A relaxing journey, but not by any means trivial. A great centrepiece of the Greenway is the viaduct in Kilmacthomas.

Valentia Island, Co. Kerry

In July we travelled to Valentia Island in search of some of the largest tree-ferns in the country. We ended up in Glanleam house, walking through jungle paths, eventually breaking out to see some of the finest vistas Ireland has to offer. This picture was taken near the Tetrapod Trackway.

Roche’s Point, Cork

On one of the summer days, we took a bike trip to Roche’s Point. This is the picturesque entry point to Cork Harbour, offering stunning views across to Crosshaven.

Cardiff, Wales

I had a wonderful week with the kids in Wales. Cardiff Castle is one of my favourites – it dominates the city centre and it gives people an opportunity to walk through centuries of history. And what a history! Norman dungeons to gruesome medieval punishments.

Stonehenge, England

I’ve wanted to go to Stonehenge for years. It’s one of the most iconic locations on Earth. And, right, it’s a busy place in summer – crowds of tourists everywhere. But I wasn’t prepared for the vast expanse around it, the barrows, the Cursus, the feeling that this area was a big deal millennia ago. A prehistoric Roman Forum, Mecca or Vatican City, of which no written clues have been left behind. If you are in England, I urge you to go.

Bath, England

Bath is a city like no other. There is a deep sense of beauty in this Roman city, built of Jurassic stone. Modernity and great antiquity side by side with each other.

Rhosilli Bay, Wales

I was here many years before, but I had forgotten how beautiful this place is. In the distance is Worm’s Head, a tidal island that’s connected to the mainland for a few hours each day.

Silicon Valley, California

While Santa Clara valley is not the prettiest place, close by are areas of wonderful natural beauty. I was there in August, and one evening I took a trip up Sierra Road near Milpitas to watch the sun set over the valley. It was worth the drive.

Shark Fin Cove, California

The Pacific Coast Highway is a favourite place of mine when I go to California. I always find something new on this route, and last August was no exception. This is Shark Fin Cove, not far from Santa Cruz.

Comeragh Mountains, Waterford

The Gap is one of the most scenic walks in the Comeragh Mountains. Starting from the car park in the Nire Valley, it’s a relatively easy walk followed by a steep ascent to the plateau.

Singapore

I was fortunate to be able to travel to Singapore again this year. It was so strange being in city so warm and humid when temperatures were in the single digits back home. After work, we would make a special effort to see different parts of the city. The area around the Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore River are particularly picturesque.

So, quite a year last year, all said. Some great memories and interesting places visited.

It’s hopeless imagining that white people will be the only people at the table, that other races will go back to doffing their caps to their supposed betters. That women will know their place and stay quiet behind their male superiors. That church authorities will rule over their wombs and their life choices. That love’s province must return exclusively to male with female.

There is no hope whatsoever that these days will return.

There is no hope that oil and coal will continue to power our lives and choke our lungs. No hope that we can persist in a myth of continuing to pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and our oceans with no consequences. No hope that polluters will not be judged harshly by history.

Those days are gone. They will never come back.

There is no hope that the young will simply fall silently in line with the edicts of a dying generation. There is no hope that the eager and educated across the world will remain content with second best. No hope that the way to compete with all this is to withdraw behind a high wall.

We are entering a new world. A world of racial and sexual equality. A world that increasingly sees itself as a single group of people, utterly dependent on the environment around them. When I look at teams of old rich religious white men wanting to set back the clocks, I see despair in their eyes. They are a minority of a minority of a minority of a minority, and they know it. Their only answer now is division, authoritarianism and bloody war. It’s pathetic. A futile attempt to turn back time.

I don’t know what the future will bring. I know that some nasty twists await as this story plays itself out. War, extremism, violence, repression, terrorism. It’s all there. It’s all possible. It’s not going to go smoothly.

But I know this. We’re not going back to the way it once was. It’s impossible. There’s not a hope in the world.

Eighty Years Ago (1938)

Adolf Hitler assumes overall control over the German Armed Forces (Wehrmacht). German troops occupy Austria. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returns from talks with Hitler in Munich, declaring “peace in our time”. The following day, Nazi Germany invades Czechoslovakia. Kristallnacht: Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues are looted and vandalised across Germany, with thousands of Jewish men arrested. Vast reserves of oil are discovered in Saudi Arabia. Chinese Nationalists flood the Yellow River in an attempt to halt the Japanese Invasion of China. Otto Hahn observes nuclear fission in uranium. Superman first appears in American comic books. The Beano comic appears in the UK. The ballpoint pen is invented by Lazlo Biro. DuPont Company announces a new synthetic material called “nylon“. A massive meteorite explodes over Chicora, Pennsylvania. Orson Welles’ radio show “War of the Worlds” is aired, to considerable consternation. South African fishermen catch a coelacanth – an ancient fish long believed extinct. Ireland:Douglas Hyde becomes Ireland’s first president. The Royal Navy hands over to the Government of Ireland the Treaty Ports of Spike Island (Cobh), Bearhaven and Lough Swilly. Douglas Corrigan flies from New York to Ireland; supposedly he had made a navigational mistake having intended to fly to California instead.

Four Hundred Years Ago (1618)

Battle lines in the Thirty Years War are drawn after Catholic representatives of Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria are thrown out of a window by a Protestant mob in Prague Castle. The war will devastate central Europe, resulting in over eight million deaths. Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded in Westminster after his men attacked a Spanish outpost in Guyana. He was executed as this incident broke a pardon agreement previously agreed with King James I. Three comets appear in the sky this year. Johannes Kepler discovers his Third Law of Planetary Motion. Ireland: The Plantation of Ulster continues.

Eight Hundred Years Ago (1218)

Nine Hundred Years Ago (1118)

The Muslim Almoravids lose control of the Spanish city of Zaragoza to Christian armies. Henry I of England finds himself in deep trouble in Normandy, when many of his barons rise up against him. Death of Baldwin I, first crusader king of Jerusalem. John II Komnemos becomes the Byzantine Emperor.

One Thousand Years Ago (1018)

King Cnut the Great accedes to the Danish throne, bringing the Kingdoms of Denmark and England together. Malcolm II defeats the Northumbrians to become the first king of a united Scotland. The First Bulgarian Empire ceases to exist – it will now form part of the Byzantine Empire. The Battle of the River Bug takes places between the Duke of Poland and the Prince of Kiev. Count Dirk III of Holland beats a much larger Holy Roman Empire army at the Battle of Vlaardingen.

One Thousand One Hundred Years Ago (AD 918)

The Kingdom of Goryeo was founded. This kingdom gives its name to the modern name “Korea”. Vikings under Ragnall ua Ímair defeat a Scottish army in Northumbria. Æthelflæd, the ‘Lady of the Mercians’, dies in a battle with the Vikings in Tamworth. Ireland:Sitric Caoch the Viking becomes king of Dublin.

(a customer walks in the door.)Customer: Good Morning.Owner: Good morning, Sir. Welcome to the National Brexit Emporium!Customer: Ah thank you my good man.Owner: What can I do for you, Sir?C: Well, I was, uh, sitting in the public library on Thurmon Street just now, skimming through ‘Rogue Herrys’ by Horace Walpole, and I suddenly came over all British.O: British, sir?C: Perfidious.O: Eh?C: ‘Ee I were all ‘angry-like!O: Ah, angry!C: In a nutshell. And I thought to myself, ‘a little fermented Brexit will do the trick’, so, I curtailed my Walpoling activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some Brexity comestibles!O: Come again?C: I Want To Leave The EU.O: Oh, I thought you were complaining about the Bulgarian tambura player!C: Oh, heaven forbid: I am one who delights in all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse!O: Sorry?C: ‘Ooo, Ah lahk a nice tune, ‘yer forced to!O: So he can go on playing, can he?C: Most certainly! At least until 2019. Now then, some Brexit please, my good man.O:(lustily) Certainly, sir. What would you like?C: Well, eh, how about a little 350 Million a Week.O: I’m, a-fraid we’re fresh out of 350 Million, sir.C: Oh, never mind, how are you on Negotiating Free Trade Agreements with the rest of the world?O: I’m afraid we never have that at the end of the week, sir, we get it fresh on Monday.C: Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, four ounces of British Empire 2.0, if you please.O: Ah! It’s beeeen on order, sir, for two weeks. Was expecting it this morning.C: ‘T’s Not my lucky day, is it? Aah, Have you some Impact Assessments?O: Sorry, sir?C: Financial Viability, Strategic Studies, that sort of thing?O: Normally, sir, yes. Today the van broke down.C: Ah. Agricultural assessments?O: Sorry.C: Regional assessments? Disadvantaged Areas?O: No.C: Any Supply Chain impacts, per chance?O: No.C: Military? Aerospace?O: No.C: Academic cooperation?O: No.C: Banking Sector? Insurance? Capital Markets?O: No.C: Fishing?O: No.C: Medicines and Biotech?O:(pause) No.C: Automotive?O: No.C: Extractive and Mining?O: No.C: Telecommunications, IT Sector, Information Security, Machine Learning, Media, Parcel and Bulk Transportation, Microelectronics, Nano-engineering, Quantum Computing?O: No.C: Horticultural, perhaps?O: Ah! We have Horticultural, yessir.C:(suprised) You do! Excellent.O: Yessir. It’s ah… it’s a bit runny.C: Oh, I like it runny.O: Well,.. It’s very runny, actually, sir.C: No matter. Fetch hither la Brexite de la Belle Bruxelles! Mmmwah!O: I…think it’s a bit runnier than you’ll like it, sir.C: I don’t care how fucking runny it is. Hand it over with all speed.O: Oooooooooohhh……..! (pause)C: What now?O: The cat’s eaten it.C:(pause) Has he?O: She, sir.(pause)C: Open Skies Agreements?O: No.C: Access to High Skills Labour Pools?O: No.C: Gibraltar?O: No.C: Scottish Independence Referendums?O: No.C: European Cities of Culture?O: No sir.C: You… do have some Brexit, don’t you?O:(brightly) Of course, sir. It’s a Brexit shop, sir. We’ve got-C: No no… don’t tell me. I’m keen to guess.O: Fair enough.C: Uuuuuh, Enhanced Border Controls.O: Yes?C: Ah, well, I’ll have some of that!O: Oh! I thought you were talking to me, sir. Mister David Enhanced Border Controls Davis, that’s my name.(pause)C: Security Co-operation?O: Uh, not as such.C: Uuh, Extradition Agreements?O: NoC: Environmental Standards?O: NoC: Pharmaceutical Testing?O: NoC: Children’s Soothers?O: NoC: Gastric Flushes?O: NoC: Anal Fissures?O: NoC: Transylvanian Botulism Brexits?O: Not -today-, sir, no.(pause)C: Aah, how about Customs Agreements?O: Well, we don’t get much call for it around here, sir.C: Not much ca–It’s the single most popular Brexit in the world!O: Not ’round here, sir.C:(slight pause) and what IS the most popular Brexit ’round hyah?O: ‘Illchester, sir.C: IS it.O: Oh, yes, it’s staggeringly popular in this district, squire.C: Is it.O: It’s our number one best seller, sir!C: I see. Uuh… ‘Illchester, eh?O: Right, sir.C: All right. Okay. ‘Have you got any?’ He asked, expecting the answer ‘no’.O: I’ll have a look, sir.. nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnno.C: It’s not much of a Brexit shop, is it?O: Finest in the district sir!C:(annoyed) Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please.O: Well, it’s so clean, sir!C: It’s certainly uncontaminated by Brexits.O:(brightly) You haven’t asked me about the Irish Border, sir.C: Would it be worth it?O: Could be.C: Have you –SHUT THAT BLOODY TAMBURA OFF!O: Told you sir…C:(slowly) Have you got any Irish Border Agreements?O: No.C: Figures. Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place……. Tell me:O: Yessir?C:(deliberately) Have you in fact got any Brexit here at all?O: Yes,sir. Brexit means Brexit.C: Really?(pause)O: No. Not really, sir.C: You haven’t.O: Nosir. Not a scrap. I was deliberately wasting your time, sir.C: Well I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to sack you.O: Right-0, sir.(The customer takes out a ballot and votes out the shopkeeper)C: What a senseless waste of human life.

Like this:

Airport arrivals, the point of transition. From a world of cramped spaces, endless queues and tiresome inactivity, now life can begin again. It is a place where worlds come together. In this spot, each day, a thousand mini-stories get told.

Witness the anticipation, the young woman hiding behind the sign. The father and daughter wearing outrageous, unkempt wigs. The small children sidling up to the doors, furtively looking down into the hallway. The expectant stares, the worried looks, the checking and re-checking of panels, counting the flights that have landed. What’s keeping them? Why is it taking so long?

Then the joy, the elation. The moment of recognition. Passivity suddenly replaced by pure joy. The children racing around, soon to be whisked into the arms of a loved one. The young woman jumping from behind the sign. The cries and grasps of delight. The older traveller feeling like a small helpless child, now reunited with a person long missing from their lives.

The embraces. The looks of sheer love and relief. The passionate kisses. The tears. For a moment, all is well with the world. For a moment, emotions are laid bare, differences forgotten. The importance of these people, being here, in this place, at this time. Nothing else counts.

The grabbing of the bags, the gifts handed over, the hands clenched tightly around each other. The small children raised aloft, like tiny trophies after the journey. Here, this way. Let’s go. You are with us now.

The story ends, to be replaced in seconds with another tale. Then another. And another. The arrivals hall. If there is such a thing as magic, you will find it here.

Like this:

I have a small problem with the idea of ‘stories’ and data when it comes to data visualisation. To me, a story is a construct – a neat beginning, middle and end that enables us humans to relay information to each other. The power of stories in human communication is extraordinary. They inspire, they motivate, they change lives. But narratives have a flaw. They don’t need to be right. They don’t need to be accurate or true. The only requirement is to be packaged in a way that makes the audience sit up and listen. This is the reason why TED talks have been so successful, yet so criticised. They are brilliant as a means of conveying information to the audience, but in creating the story behind the presentation, so much may be left out. The audience legitimately might ask ‘that seems almost too perfect. What are they not telling us?’.

Such it is with presenting data. Data is messy. It’s often wrong or inaccurate. It may be tied to a particular question, which is different to the question you are trying to ask. It may show answers that are unintuitive and inconvenient. Data is at war with narrative, or more precisely, it doesn’t care about narrative.

﻿So when presenting your data, be sensitive to the clash between the story you would like to show and what the data is saying (or not saying). As a rule, when presenting data honestly, you should start with everything. Give your audience a chance to see the bigger picture in all its glory and chaos before you dive into the detail. Allow them to ask questions, and work at creating a consensus. Where you see something interesting, gain agreement with them that they can see it too. Be alert to questions from them that might lead to new investigations and new interpretations.

Your job as a data presenter is to show signals in noise, not to eliminate the noise completely. By eliminating the inherent messiness of data for the supposed benefit of the audience, you might just insult their intelligence instead. You also step down a path of deception – careful editing of information – so uncomfortable questions need not be asked.

That’s the problem with stories and data. Balancing the clean and packaged with the messy and inconvenient. To tell data stories properly you should be prepared to take people on a journey whose end is undecided, whose conclusions are tentative at best. Give your audience a chance to find their own meanings and be sensitive for differing interpretations.

The top two pictures are related – improper use of antibiotics over the past few decades has created new bugs that are resistant to almost all known bacterial killers. At the same time, new antibiotics have failed to keep pace. The world is finally waking up to this huge crisis.

One hundred years ago, a flu pandemic killed between 50 million and 100 million people in a period of months. Smaller pandemics have happened since, but it is a matter of time before a virus of similar lethality makes it’s comeback.

And it’s not only a damaging flu that could make its presence felt. Old diseases like measles and whooping cough are coming back too, due to different pressure groups who believe, despite decades of medical evidence, that vaccines don’t work and are harmful. Some kids depend on the rest of us to be vaccinated in order to be protected against these diseases.

Kind of a hard one to draw, but there is increasing evidence that our oceans are becoming more acidic. This is having detrimental impacts on shellfish and other ocean organisms, which then propagates up the food chain.

We thought that common sense had finally prevailed against the use of nuclear weapons as an option in international politics. We thought wrong.

The rise (and seeming acceptance) of extremist hate groups is particularly worrying, given that the world has been there before and the consequences were so disastrous. Both media and politicians have been stoking up this hatred for quite a while.

For us on this side of the pond, we’re still waiting to understand how Britain will prosper from a withdrawal from the EU – particularly if, as expected, there is no deal. Pro-Leavers are great on rhetoric, but thin on the details of how Britain is expected to thrive economically when leaving a successful partnership that gave us 70 years of peace in Europe. The only thing we have seen so far is an increase in xenophobia and companies deciding to move out.

And finally, the biggest ongoing threat to all our lives and livelihoods – the ongoing destruction of democracy and democratic values by politicians on the make.